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Remembered Today:

JH Steward "The Tourist" binoculars with US NAVY marking


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Anyone have any information, or have seen these binoculars before? 

They are JH Steward with 406 Strand written on them. 

They also include US NAVY label and serial number.

We found a newspaper advertisement for these binoculars from 1880. 

 

Thanks!

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J H Steward was a well-respected instrument maker and optician in Vicwardian times, but it's possible these were made for them by a French supplier. They look like a pretty standard Galilean glass of 3x - 5x magnification. The US Navy marking is interesting - done by a highly-skilled hand in an unusual font. It's not unusual on similar glasses to see British WD acceptance markings (more often on the eyepiece tubes) with an 'S.<n>' grade and registration number, indicating acceptance for military use during the optics emergency of 1914 - 15, but I haven't seen it for US use before. I wasn't aware the US had ever gone through an emergency that'd have them adopt tourist grade glasses of this type.

Edited by MikB
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9 hours ago, MikB said:

J H Steward was a well-respected instrument maker and optician in Vicwardian times, but it's possible these were made for them by a French supplier. They look like a pretty standard Galilean glass of 3x - 5x magnification. The US Navy marking is interesting - done by a highly-skilled hand in an unusual font. It's not unusual on similar glasses to see British WD acceptance markings (more often on the eyepiece tubes) with an 'S.<n>' grade and registration number, indicating acceptance for military use during the optics emergency of 1914 - 15, but I haven't seen it for US use before. I wasn't aware the US had ever gone through an emergency that'd have them adopt tourist grade glasses of this type.

 

 

Thank you!

That got me searching. I found the "Eyes for the NAVY" program. The US Army collected optics from the population for $1 each during WWI. The Navy wrote serial numbers on the borrowed optics and promised to return them if possible.

I'm assuming that's how US Navy markings got themselves on JH Steward glass.

 

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/artifacts/ephemera/certificates/certificate-eyes-of-the-navy-theodore-roosevelt.html

 

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2 hours ago, Shnubs said:

 

 

Thank you!

That got me searching. I found the "Eyes for the NAVY" program. The US Army collected optics from the population for $1 each during WWI. The Navy wrote serial numbers on the borrowed optics and promised to return them if possible.

I'm assuming that's how US Navy markings got themselves on JH Steward glass.

 

https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collections/artifacts/ephemera/certificates/certificate-eyes-of-the-navy-theodore-roosevelt.html

 

And thank you too! I hadn't known of that programme before, and the explanation you've uncovered rings very true, as it has strong similarities to the earlier British one - except that was mainly for artillery- and sniper-spotting use in the trenches. In the British case, they were in use for so long under such hard - and often chaotic - conditions that there's not much evidence many were returned.

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